BROOKLYN BOOK CULTURE

FEATURED WRITER: PAOLO CORSO

Excerpt from "Unraveled" from Paolo Corso's short story collection: "Giovanna's 86 Circles" (University of Wisconsin Press)

AFTER THAT, I wrote every week, telling Lisa how
long Mrs. Natoli's knitting had gotten. It was growing steadily. I knew
because I checked every day. It practically covered Mrs. Natoli's knees
and then began to drag on the floor it was so long. I used up most of
my writing tablet explaining all this to Lisa when finally she wrote
back and said she was about to have the baby.

I wrote her right away and told her everything in
a letter�that when I visited Mrs. Natoli, she used up all the yarn in
her tin and even had Harold break away from the camera to get her some
more. He did when there was a commercial. Mrs. Natoli yelled to Rosetta
to come down and try her gown on. She stepped up to a stool right
through a strip of sunshine. Rosetta was covered in a web of blue that
glowed so bright that I swore I could see right through her. Mrs.
Natoli began tugging at the gown in places where it was too short. When
she put her needles down to use both hands, the yarn dropped out of her
lap and onto the cement floor. I reached to grab it for her, but it
rolled out of my reach over to the cellar doors and up the stairs
toward the backyard. At that point, Rosetta began spinning around like
a ballerina, almost as though the force at the end of the yarn sent her
in a thousand circles as the gown began to unravel. Her feet clawed the
stool, her knees knocked, and her thighs shook like Jell-O salad. When
the part around Rosetta's stomach was about to unravel, Mrs. Natoli
pushed me out the door and yelled for me to stop it.

I followed the trail of blue yarn past the
woodshed where it slipped between two leaves of wild rhubarb and into
the brush. My feet twitched with every stone and buckeye that landed
underneath my ting tongs. I could see the blue strip ahead of me except
where it disappeared in the shadows of tulip trees. As I got closer to
the river, the ground began to spring back from under my feet like
sponge cake. Beads of moisture hung a pearl necklace on the weeds. The
yarn was damp in places now.

I let it glide through my hand until I reached
the end: the belly button of a baby. It was laying on a patch of green
moss floating on the river. Its skin was as smooth as a clean
blackboard. Its hair stuck to its scalp. Its hands made tight fists. A
bubble peeked through its open lips. I never held a baby this young
before but knew enough to hold its head. I ran as fast as I could and
would have gotten lost in the woods if it weren't for the trail of blue
yarn to follow back to Mrs. Natoli's cellar. I couldn't wait to hand
Rosetta her baby in a nest of yarn. Finally, she'd have a baby to love
as much as Harold did his science. Mrs. Natoli took a pair of scissors
and snipped the yarn off the baby. Harold came out of the bathroom and
took his goggles off. He couldn't wait to weigh and measure it.